Cite as: 514 U. S. 725 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
733.5 The majority's term does bear a familial resemblance to the statutory term "restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling," but it should be readily apparent that the category of zoning rules the majority labels "maximum occupancy restrictions" does not exhaust the category of restrictions exempted from the FHA by § 3607(b)(1). The plain words of the statute do not refer to "available floor space or the number and type of rooms"; they embrace no requirement that the exempted restrictions "apply uniformly to all residents of all dwelling units"; and they give no indication that such restrictions
5 To my knowledge, no federal or state judicial opinion—other than three § 3607(b)(1) decisions dating from 1992 and 1993—employs the term "maximum occupancy restrictions." Likewise, not one of the model codes from which the majority constructs its category of zoning rules uses that term either. See ante, at 733 (citing authorities). Accordingly, it is difficult to conceive how Congress, in 1988, could have "enacted § 3607(b)(1) against the backdrop of an evident distinction between municipal land-use restrictions and maximum occupancy restrictions." Ante, at 732.
In this context, the majority seizes on a phrase that appears in a booklet published jointly by the American Public Health Association and the Centers for Disease Control—" 'the maximum number of individuals permitted to reside in a dwelling unit, or rooming unit.' " Ante, at 733, n. 6 (quoting APHA-CDC Recommended Minimum Housing Standards § 2.51, p. 12 (1986)). Even if, as the majority boldly asserts, this phrase "bears a marked resemblance to the formulation Congress used in § 3607(b)(1)," ante, at 733, n. 6, I fail to comprehend how that would add to our understanding of the statute. The majority surely cannot hope to invoke the rule that where " 'Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed.' " Molzof v. United States, 502 U. S. 301, 307 (1992) (quoting Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952)). The quoted phrase from the APHA- CDC publication can hardly be called a "ter[m] of art"—let alone a term in which is "accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice." See also NLRB v. Amax Coal Co., 453 U. S. 322, 329 (1981) (applying the rule to "terms that have accumulated settled meaning under either equity or the common law").
745
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